


Dog Don't Hunt

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Punisher (Comics), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 14:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19402615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Frank comes to David with a badly damaged augment five days after an upgrade, and David's a little pissy about it.





	Dog Don't Hunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kokopellifacetattoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokopellifacetattoo/gifts).



There's a lot of things Frank hates these days.

Like people who chain their animals up outside in the heat with no water, he hates that. He hates augment weight limit rules on public transport. He hates pissant crooks who get too big for their britches and then piss themselves when someone shows up to shut them down.

Yellow mustard. He fuckin' hates that shit.

The exasperated raising of Micro's hands, the soft 'I shouldn't be surprised _and yet_ ' huff of breath when Frank shows up, arm hanging unusable from the shoulder down. Looking at the shithead, you'd think Frank's broken arm was a bigger inconvenience to _him_ than it was to Frank, like it wasn't twenty-odd pounds of dead-weight metal dangling from the anchors rooted in _Frank’s_ flesh.

"We _just_ did this last week," David grumbles, slapping tools onto his surgical tray, barely looking at what he's doing. "Jesus Christ, not even a full week ago, Frank. Five days. You know how I know?"

Frank does not answer. He knows goddamn well it's only been five days; it's _his_ fucking arm. 

"I know because five days isn't long enough to forget rewiring your goddamn shoulder for four hours."

Sometimes all Frank has to do is give the man a sufficiently dark look to get him to shut up. Sometimes he doesn't even need to make that look _mean_ , sometimes all he has to do is be tired enough and Micro makes that stupid 'zip the lip' gesture and goes relatively quiet as they work.

Most days, Frank appreciates that, appreciates even the pissy silence when he can tell Micro is unhappy to be doing this (again, again, it seems like Frank is eternally crawling back here to wind up under these clever hands). His head hurts, tension from the extra strain in his shoulders and up the back of his neck from the weight of his arm, and sometimes David offers him aspirin and a place to lay down once the repairs are done. Sometimes, Frank even takes him up on it.

And then there's these days, where David wants to bitch like they're an old couple and he's got the right to be _exasperated_ with Frank. 

Look, put plain, Frank does get it, a little. Micro puts a hell of a lot of effort into the augments he makes for Frank. Everything is upcycled or hand machined right here in his creepy ass basement workshop, and he's passionate about making sure things work just right and are still _comfortable_. Every upgrade, every repair, every new prototype test, he puts time and energy into so Frank can keep going out and fighting his goddamn endless war.

But that's war, isn't it? War is all about wins and losses. The tools you make for war are made to be destroyed or broken or blasted apart, so David should know he's going to have to keep doing this forever. 

"I know damn well you didn't do this in your usual bullshit," David says, savage in tone but careful with his hands as he pries loose the dermal plating and peels back the silvery false flesh around the anchors in Frank's shoulder. His hands are always careful, gentle so he's never the one causing unnecessary pain, even when he sounds like he'd want to. "It's two in the afternoon and there's no police chatter about any idiots shooting up any Nazi hideouts in broad daylight."

Frank grunts, keeping his mouth shut. He knows a test poke when he hears one, and this is Micro baiting him for details, poking around while he's sore to see what got him. Maybe the logical thing is to say he wants data so he can figure out how best to make sure this doesn't happen again, but like hell is Frank going to detail today's bullshit and listen to David turn it into a joke.

"You get in a fight with Marc and he handed you your ass?" David asks, probing again as he fiddles with a connection between Frank's living muscle and the machinery. Something somewhere in his shoulder starts to tingle, and Frank bites down a wince. 

"No wait," David says, like Frank's made any move to answer. "Don't tell me. You slept on it wrong."

"Keep fuckin' talkin, see what happens. I need your hands, I don't need your mouth."

He doesn't need to look at David to see the look _that_ line gets him, and curses under his breath and the predictable chuckle. Sleeping with David didn't make him any less of a shit about things like this.

"You know, the crankier you are about it, the more I gotta assume you did something extra stupid."

Bait. It's all bait. Frank doesn't dignify it with an answer, even if David's hitting the proverbial nail on the head. Vague but he's still not wrong.

For a little while, David restrains himself to muttering under his breath. It's better when he sings whatever stupid catchy shit has been on the radio lately, or tries to explain the work out loud as he does it. It's best when he's in a good mood, when it's scheduled maintenance, when his teasing is more of the 'so what're you doing later' variety. 

Muttering and humming irritated, questioning little noises under his breath is far less enjoyable. The tingle in Frank's shoulder starts to turn to a nagging pins-and-needles fire.

"Jesus, are these _teeth_ marks?"

Frank closes his eyes and lets the back of his head hit the worktable. His arm is dead except for the ball of agitation in his shoulder, but he knows David is running fingers over the grooves and dents in his forearm plates. All the yanked, strained connections in the shoulder are probably making a lot more sense now that he's getting a good look at the mess on his forearm.

David curses and makes unhappy sounds, mourning the work he'd put into fabricating those custom plates more than whatever the hell Frank had been up to. That's more bait, trying to get Frank annoyed enough to tell him.

"Had to have been someone's K-950, but those units are all programmed strictly for defense, they only bite if they or the human they're registered to is threatened." This is maybe not bait, this is maybe just Micro trying to talk himself through a puzzle. It still rankles, even as hands are carefully working the ruined plates off and getting to work righting all the crushed, pinched, and otherwise messed up mechanisms below.

"Last I checked, the 950s registered in this city were all paired with like...survivors of violent crimes or rich old people as security units. There's like, less than a dozen." Edging back into probing. Frank's patience is waning. "You find some illegal, unregistered dog-bots, Frank? Please tell me you haven't started harassing disabled people."

Whatever look is on Frank's face, it gets a huff of disbelieving laughter. 

"Well the only other option is that you've been picking a fight with animals that are, as far as I know, extinct. I don't know that even a wolf could have made that big of a mess out of plating that thick. I mean at this point, I just want to know if I need to be running searches for dangerous, unregistered and badly programmed bots, because god knows you're not dumb enough to have tried shaking down some old person in broad daylight when they had a huge, fuck-off tough looking dog with them."

"They look like pitbulls."

"Yeah that's the fucking _point_ Frank, they look tough as shit."

Frank winces finally, the pins-and-needles blossoming from shoulder to wrist as Micro twists something. "No, they look _exactly_ like a pitbull. Like fur and all. I thought it was a fucking dog someone left outside the bodega on 52nd and when I tried to pet it, it fucking bit me, and wouldn't let go." 

Glaring, Frank watches David process that, going from something concerned to wondering to fully fucking amused. He's half tempted to throttle the mouthy bastard when he starts laughing, hands pausing their work so he can make a show of wiping his eyes. 

"You're saying you saw some strange, huge, big-as-fuck and full of teeth dog, sitting alone outside a store, and your first inclination was to _pet it_?"

"I was checking it's collar!"

"I cannot believe this. Your one true weakness. It's not bullets or a fatal attraction to crazy assholes like Marc or that Devil guy, it's just... dogs..."

Frank twists to get his good hand into the front of David's shirt, yanking him down. "You're gonna wanna drop it, before I bite somethin' offa you."

David laughs the whole rest of the time he's working, but he at least stops the outright mockery. He saves it for an hour later, when Frank's arm is working again and he's sitting on the edge of the worktable, still hooked into the diagnostic computers while calibration programs make sure all the systems check out. 

"You know, maybe that's what we need," Micro says, bland and considering, which should have been clue enough that it was just more taunting. Frank looks at him anyway, brow raised in question. David's smile turns sharp. "If I got you a dog, maybe you'd quit chasing strays."


End file.
